Sunshine Biopharma, Inc., a pharmaceutical company focused on the research, development and commercialization of oncology and antiviral drugs, announced that it has entered into an agreement with the University of Arizona for the purposes of advancing the development of novel PLpro inhibitors discovered by University of Arizona and University of Illinois Chicago researchers.

The development of the company’s lead PLpro inhibitor, SBFM-PL4, is currently continuing at the University of Georgia. At the University of Arizona, the research effort will focus on determining the in vivo safety, pharmacokinetics, and dose selection properties of 3 university owned PLpro inhibitors followed by efficacy testing in MA10 mice infected with SARS-CoV-2. Molecules showing efficacy in infected mice will be advanced to human trials.

“We are delighted to be working with the University of Arizona Coronavirus research team led by Dr. Gregory Thatcher as well as the commercialization team at Tech Launch Arizona,” said Dr. Steve Slilaty, CEO of Sunshine Biopharma. “It is of paramount importance to find a wide array of inhibitors for PLpro, as this virus encoded protease is responsible for suppression of the human immune system thereby enabling the virus to cause severe illness,” he added.

The University of Arizona, a land-grant university with two independently accredited medical schools, is one of the nation's top 50 public universities. Established in 1885, the university is widely recognized as a student-centric university and has been designated as a Hispanic Serving Institution by the US Department of Education.

Tech Launch Arizona is the office of the University of Arizona that creates social and economic impact through commercializing inventions stemming from university research.

In addition, to working on the development of a treatment for Covid-19, Sunshine Biopharma is engaged in the development Adva-27a, a unique anticancer compound. Tests conducted to date have demonstrated the effectiveness of Adva-27a at destroying multidrug resistant cancer cells, including pancreatic cancer cells, small-cell lung cancer cells, breast cancer cells, and uterine sarcoma cells.